Showdown on Rails : Prop. 156: Backers of $1-billion bond issue cite glittering debut of Metrolink as reason to back transit financing plan. Foes say the new service is not cost-efficient.

As passengers alighted from the first Metrolink commuter trains this week, platoons of political workers greeted them with flyers, pennants and brochures touting Proposition 156, a $1-billion statewide bond measure on the ballot next week that proponents say is essential to expand rail transit.

Coming just eight days before the election, Metrolink’s debut Monday has turned out to be more than the dawn of a new era of transportation in Southern California--it has also set the stage for a debate over how to fix congestion and pollution--an argument that may be settled next Tuesday, when voters decide the fate of Proposition 156.

Opponents of the Nov. 3 ballot measure have similarly used Metrolink’s opening to call attention to their cause, faxing to reporters a negative, point-by-point assessment of what they assert are the new rail line’s high costs and paltry benefits.

Both sides on the bond issue--the second of three such bond sales proposed in the first half of this decade--are trying to use the attention focused on the periwinkle-and-white trains to show their own colors in the debate over the wisdom of rail transportation.

Proponents used Metrolink’s smooth and jubilant debut Monday to remind first-day riders that the system was partially funded by $1 billion in rail bonds approved by voters in 1990.

Even with additional financial aid from local half-cent sales-tax surcharges, the bonds behind Proposition 156 would be needed to expand Metrolink, as well as to help fund other rail-transit lines around the state, they said.

The broad coalition--which includes the League of Women Voters, the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Taxpayers Assn., the Sierra Club, the Automobile Club of Southern California--also emphasizes that Proposition 156 will bring construction jobs and other economic benefits to recession-battered California.

“Prop. 156 is an opportunity to boost the economy and protect the environment at the same time,” said Jim Knox of the Planning and Conservation League.

Knox said figures from the state Department of Transportation and the federal Department of Commerce show that projects partially financed by Proposition 156 will create 70,000 new full-time permanent jobs and more than $7 billion in new business activity.

Opponents of the ballot measure answer that rail transit systems--particularly Metrolink--are economically inefficient. At its peak in 1995, critics said, Metrolink alone will soak up $100 million a year in operating subsidies to move 40,000 riders a day. Each ride would consume $5 to $11 in public support.

Foes argue that the Southern California Rapid Transit District faces budget shortfalls that are cutting into its expansion plans. The RTD or some other bus operator, they say, would better provide long-distance service for about the same per-passenger subsidy--but without the $800 million in capital investment required for Metrolink.

“Metrolink is an expensive service primarily for upper-middle-income people that will (do) little to nothing for congestion or air quality,” said independent transportation consultant Ryan Snyder, a Proposition 156 opponent. “This is started at the same time that low-income people are being told their bus fares must be raised for lack of money. We need to rethink our priorities.”

One-half of a two-man team of experts who oppose the statewide ballot measure--the other is UCLA urban-planning professor Martin Wachs--Snyder lacks the resources to take his arguments directly to Metrolink riders and other commuters. His only recourse has been to send faxes to the press.

Meanwhile, Southern California Regional Rail Authority officials said that 5,097 people boarded the 12 inbound trains Tuesday, the second day of an opening week of free rides. That number was about the same as the number of passengers estimated to have tried the trains on Monday.

SCRRA officials added that they are working to mute the sound of Metrolink train horns to lessen the impact on homes near the tracks. Richard Stanger, executive director of the five-county commuter-train agency, said officials are looking at removing the horns from the tops of the locomotives to points closer to the ground.

Despite a flood of publicity about Metrolink and its schedule, some potential riders continued to be confused about the nature of the service. Several said they went to Union Station at midday Tuesday to test-ride the trains, only to be told that the next trains didn’t leave for hours--and that had they gone to the suburbs, the trains wouldn’t bring them back.

Metrolink operates only at rush hours and only in one direction at a time--into the city from suburbs in the morning, and back to the suburbs in the afternoon. During the day, the trains lay over downtown, where they are refueled and serviced; at night, they are parked near their suburban terminals.